We are baby boomers privileged to enjoy our dream of early retirement while traveling full-time. We recently traded our 2005 37' Allegro Bay for a 2015 DRV Tradition fifth wheel being towed by a 2015 Silverado 3500HD Duramax dually. We are in our ninth year of being on the road. We invite you to join us as we explore this amazing country. and navigate the full-time RV lifestyle. Our heartfelt thanks to our soldiers and their families for their sacrifices to ensure our freedom so that we can pursue our dream.

August 24, 2009

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

We had a four-hour drive from Fairmont to our next stop in Billings, MT. Along the way, we hit a few showers with some interesting clouds as we drove through the hills of western Montana.

In Billings, we stayed at Billings Trailer Village RV Park. Trailer Village has full hookups including cable TV. There is a charge for Wi-Fi. The roads and pads are paved, and there is grass between the sites. The site width isn't too bad for a private campground, but having to park your tow vehicle or toad beside the RV takes up some of your space. The photo below shows our site at Trailer Village RV Park.

While in Billings, we visited with some old friends from church years ago back in Pittsburgh. At that time the Morup family led the puppet ministry of which Lora was a part. Seeing Mary and her daughter, Marianne, was great. We enjoyed dinner with them and appreciated their showing us around Billings.

While in Billings, we also drove about an hour to the east to see the Little Bighorn National Monument. Of course, the Battle of the Little Bighorn was where Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and his soldiers were defeated by several thousand Indian warriors on June 25, 1876.

Outside the visitor center is a National Cemetery. Veterans of the U.
S. Military and their immediate families are buried here. The cemetery
was established in 1886, and there are soldiers from the Indian Wars
through WWII and the Korean War.

When we
arrived at the visitor center, there was a ranger talk in progress on the back porch. The
rangers are always very knowledgeable, so it was a good way to learn
more about the events that took place at the Little Bighorn River back
in 1876.

Inside the visitor center, we watched a movie about the battle, then looked around the small museum. There was a display showing a typical 7th Cavalry soldier and one showing a typical Indian warrior.

The cavalryman was a reflection of America's diversity. Forty-two percent of the soldiers were foreign-born. The Army offered hope to immigrants for a new life, an opportunity to learn English, and an opportunity to learn about the customs of their newly-adopted country. They were probably under trained and were poorly equipped. For example, although repeating rifles had been around since the 1850s, the cavalrymen were still using single-shot rifles. On top of that, their rifles had a reputation for jamming when they overheated from being fired in rapid succession. Repeating rifles were considered to be too expensive.

The Indians were mostly Lakota-Souix and Cheyenne. They were well-trained in hunting, and those skills were applied to fighting. The Indians were fighting to preserve their nomadic way of life.

We also learned a little about the years of strife between the Euro-Americans and the Indians that led up to the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The conflict went back to the arrival of the first Europeans in North America. By the mid
1800s, settlers began moving west. The settlers had little regard for the sanctity of the Indians' culture, hunting grounds, or of the terms of former treaties.

In 1862,
President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act providing free land to
anyone who would settle and develop that land. Following the Civil War,
emigrants resumed their westward migration with renewed vigor. Skirmishes with the Indians also increased.

The U. S.
Government decided it was better to try to make peace with the Indians
then try to fight them, so they signed a treaty with the Lakota,
Cheyenne, and other tribes of the Great Plains giving the Indians a
large area of land in western Wyoming. However, gold was discovered in
the Black Hills in 1874, and large numbers of gold seekers flocked to
the region in violation of the treaty.

The Army
tried to keep the prospectors out of the Black Hills to no avail, and
attempts to buy the Black Hills from the Indians were unsuccessful.
When the Indians resumed raids on nearby settlements and on travelers,
the Army was called in to enforce order.

In 1876,
three expeditions against the Plains Indians departed from three separate western forts. General George Crook, Colonel John Gibbon, and General Alfred Terry, who led these expeditions, were to converge on a large group if Indians concentrated in
eastern Montana.

General
Crook met up with a large band of Indians at Rosebud Creek south of the intended
rendezvous point. He was essentially defeated in the battle that ensued and was forced to stop to regroup. Meanwhile, Colonel Gibbon and General Terry, unaware of
Crook's battle, joined forces north of the Little Bighorn River.
General Terry ordered Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer to take the
7th Cavalry (about 700 men) and approach the area along the Little Bighorn where the
Indians were congregated from the south while General Terry and Colonel Gibbon would approach
from the north.

Custer's greatest fear was that the Indians would scatter before the Army had a chance to attack. Convinced the Indians had detected the presence of his troops, Custer ordered the attack on June 25 instead of waiting for General Terry and his forces to arrive a day later.

In order to prevent the Indians from scattering, Custer split his forces and sent Major Marcus Reno to approach the Indian camp from the south while he continued on to approach from the northeast. There are two main battle sites in the national monument connected by a road that is about five miles long. At what is currently the eastern end of the park, Major Reno attacked a group of Indians camped there, but was surprised by their large numbers. Reno was forced to retreat to the nearby woods where his men were pinned down.

We concentrated our visit on where Custer and his men made their Last Stand at the western end of the national monument near the visitor center. Since Custer and all the men in his immediate command (about 250) were killed, the precise details of his route after he left Major Reno and what occurred along the way are unknown. What is known is that he greatly underestimated the number of Indians and was undoubtedly overwhelmed.

Custer thought there were only about 800 Indian Warriors in the area along the Little Bighorn River. His assumption was based on old information. In reality, there were a total of 7,000 to 8,000 Indians camped there, and about 1,500 to 2,000 of them were warriors.

Custer and his last 41 remaining men took a stand on the hill overlooking the spot where the visitor center is now located. The photo below shows the Indians' view up the hill. The 7th Cavalry Memorial is at the top on the left, and the individual markers indicate the place where the men fell in battle on June 25, 1876. The bodies of the enlisted men are buried in a common grave at the base of the memorial at the top of the hill. Officers' bodies were moved to various cemeteries around the country. Custer is buried at West Point.

The museum
had an excellent diorama depicting the Last Stand. Although
the detail in the scene almost makes it look real, the standing figure
is only about 8 inches tall.

The next photo shows the soldiers' view down into the valley from approximately the same vantage point as the diorama.

The next photo is a closeup of the marker indicating where Custer fell.

Also at the top of the hill there is also a memorial to the estimated 60 to 100 Indians who fell in the battle.

Although the Indians won a decisive victory at Little Bighorn, the death of Custer strengthened the resolve to control the Indians and force them onto reservations. Custer was a Civil War hero, and his death angered the country.

The Indians were led in the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. After the battle, Sitting Bull and many of his followers fled to Canada. He returned to the United States to surrender in 1881. He toured briefly with Buffalo Bill's Wild West, then returned to South Dakota where he was shot and killed by an Indian policeman in 1890.

Crazy Horse (whose name actually means "his horse is crazy"), led the war party that delayed General Crook at Rosebud Creek. Crazy Horse returned to the Little Bighorn and possibly may have also led the battle against Major Reno. After the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse continued to skirmish with the Army until his eventual surrender in 1877. He was stabbed by a soldier with a bayonet during a possible escape attempt later in 1877.

We had always heard about "Custer's Last Stand," and it was great to finally see where it took place and to learn why the battle was fought and to learn some of the details about the battle. It was also moving to learn about the soldiers who fought bravely in the face of overwhelming odds and about the Native Americans who fought bravely to preserve their traditions and way of life.

The next morning, we departed Billings and headed to our next destination. We'll tell you about it in our next post.

August 17, 2009

We left Coram, MT, and headed south to I-90. Then we drove southeast on I-90 to Fairmont, MT. We were planning to do some sightseeing in an area known for mining along I-90 in southwestern Montana.

When we researched campgrounds, we decided on Fairmont RV Park located part way between Anaconda and Butte, which were two of our target sightseeing areas. Fairmont RV has both back-in and pull-through sites with full hookups and free Wi-Fi. Some sites have 50 amp electric at an extra charge of $3 a night. Roads and sites are a mix of gravel and dirt, and there is grass between the sites. Site width varies, but spacing is decent for the most part. The photo below shows our site at Fairmont RV.

The campground is over two miles from the interstate, so it is nice and quiet. There are railroad tracks near the campground, and the tracks were nice and shiny; but we only heard a train whistle once or twice the whole time we were there. We knew the Copper King Express tourist train passed by twice a day on weekends, but we were never in the campground to hear it. We'll have more about the Copper King Express in a future post.

As we said, we visited this area of Montana to explore some of its mining history. Because of the "boom and bust" nature of mining, there were a lot of ghost towns in the area. We went online and did some research, and the ghost town that sounded the best to us was Garnet Ghost Town. Unfortunately, Garnet was about an hour's drive back west on I-90, then about 10 miles up a dirt road. But the web site touted Garnet as being the best preserved ghost town in Montana, so we decided to go ahead and make the drive.

The town of Garnet takes its name from the Garnet Mountains where it is located. In turn, the mountain range takes its name from the semi-precious stones found there. But the prospectors weren't looking for garnets - they were looking for gold.

The area around Garnet was the location of gold prospecting in the mid 1800s. At first, prospectors panned for gold along the creeks, then they began using rockers and sluice boxes. The method of separating free-standing, metallic gold from rock and sand is called placer mining.

By 1870, placer mining was no longer profitable, and miners began leaving Garnet. The gold-bearing quartz ore remaining in the area required more expensive mining and smelting techniques, and miners were drawn to silver mines elsewhere. A drop in silver prices in the late 1890s along with improvements in technology in mining and extracting gold led to renewed interest in gold mining in the Garnet Mountains.

By 1898 there were up to 1,000 residents in Garnet. Although Garnet still had plenty of saloons and houses of ill repute, Garnet had quite a few families living there unlike earlier mining towns that were largely made up of men.

By 1905, most of the gold that could be economically recovered at the time had again been mined out and only about 150 people remained in the town of Garnet. A fire in 1912 destroyed most of the businesses, and the town was all but abandoned during WWI. There was a brief revival in the 1930s when President Roosevelt raised the price of gold; but it was short-lived, and by the late 1940s, the town was abandoned permanently.

After getting off I-90, we drove up Bear Gulch toward Garnet. Along the road for about the first two miles of the gulch are piles of gravel.

From 1939 to 1942, a dredge was used to dig down into the bed of Bear Creek to look for gold washed down from the mountains and buried in the gravel creek bed. The dredge could dig 43 feet deep. The dredge washed and separated the heavier gold and dumped the gravel along the creek.

A few miles up the gulch, the pavement ended. As we drove on, the road became steeper and narrower. The last three miles can make you a little nervous because you can't see around the bends if anyone may be coming the other way, and there aren't many places to pull over if there is. The next photo shows one of the switchbacks along the road.

The photo below shows Garnet from the hill overlooking town. Main Street runs from the lower left to the upper right.

The next photo is looking up main street. The visitor center is in the little building to the right, which used to be a saloon.

The photo below shows Frank Davies' general store. The store was built in 1898 and sold groceries, shoes, dry goods, hardware, and mining supplies. The death of the last resident, Frank Davies, in 1947 and the subsequent auction of the contents of the store in 1948 marked the permanent end of Garnet as a town.

Margery checked out some of the hand-operated and early electric washing machines that were inside the general store. The electric washers were not originally part of Garnet because the town didn't have electricity.

Right up Main Street from the general store is the Wells Hotel. This hotel, which was one of several in town, was well built and quite elegant for a mining town. It boasted carved moldings, printed wallpaper, stained glass windows, and chandeliers. The door on the second floor had a pulley overhead and was used to lift guests' heavy trunks to the second floor so they wouldn't have to lug them up the stairs.

Garnet Ghost Town is operated by the Bureau of Land Management and the Garnet Preservation Association. Their goal is to preserve the buildings without destroying the ghostly nature of the abandoned town. It is more a technique of "delayed decay" than restoration. That philosophy can be seen in the peeling wallpaper in the next photo of the dining room of the hotel.

When the Wells Hotel closed in 1930s, Frank Davies who owned the general store next door moved into the kitchen of the hotel. He maintained a few rooms for visiting friends; but in unused rooms, mushrooms grew from the still-made beds.

The next photo shows one of the rooms on the second floor. The mushrooms have been cleaned up.

Vandals, scavengers, and souvenir hunters have removed the banister, chandeliers, carved moldings, and stained glass windows from the hotel, but there are a few remnants of the touches of elegance like the wallpaper behind Margery in the photo below.

On the hill behind the hotel and general store are the remnants of miners' cabins. Most were hastily built because time spent building a cabin was time away from mining. None of the cabins have foundations, and many of the cabins are only one room. Some cabins, like the one in the next photo, weren't even built to full height.

However, since there were more families in Garnet than in most mining towns, some of the cabins were a little nicer with porches and other amenities. The Sam Adams family lived in the two-room house in the next photo. The house was built of logs, but was later covered by siding indicating a degree of wealth. Not only was Sam Adams a miner, he also sold general merchandise. The house originally had a porch in front, and the portal to the left was the entrance to the woodshed and covered walkway to the privy, which can be seen on the far left.

On our way out of town, Paul stopped to check out the rock drill they had set up to demonstrate how the miners would drill holes for blasting.

After our tour of Garnet Ghost Town, we wound our way back down the narrow dirt road. Part way down the single-lane road, we came face to face with a road grader slowly working his way up. It would have made a great picture, but Margery was too busy trying to back up around the bend...and Paul was busy trying to help guide her with observations like, "You're going to back into the hill!" The operator of the grader was obviously more familiar with the road, and he was going frontwards, so he found a place to pull over that was closer to the edge than we would have dared go. We were then able to pass by and be on our way.

August 13, 2009

Glacier National Park Part I

It was only about an hour and a half drive from Polson to our next stop in Coram, MT. Coram is about 5 miles from the west entrance to Glacier National Park. In Coram, we stayed at North American RV Park. North American RV has mostly pull-through sites with full hookups and free Wi-Fi. Some sites have 30 amp electric and some have 50 amp. The roads and pads are gravel. The sites are a little narrow, but we did have enough room for our awning and slides. Although there is grass between the sites, our grass was a little sparse. U. S. Highway 2 that passes the campground is a very busy road so there is some traffic noise during the day, but the traffic diminishes to almost nothing at night. There is also a train track nearby, and we could hear an occasional train whistle. The photo below shows our site at North American RV Park.

Glacier National Park is located in the northwestern corner of Montana right along the Canadian border. Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada is a sister park to Glacier. Together, the two parks are known as Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

Glacier National Park contains the southern extensions of the Canadian Rockies. The national park is named more for the colossal glaciers that existed in the past rather than the relatively small glaciers that exist today. Glaciers have worn down the mountains to leave craggy peaks, they have scoured the sides of the mountains to form U-shaped valleys, and they have dammed up rivers to form lakes.

Visitors first started arriving in the area of Glacier National Park in the 1890s, and the national park was established in 1910. Early visitors to the park would take a stagecoach to Lake McDonald, then take a boat to a hotel built along the lake. They would also hike or ride horses to various other hotels or chalets scattered around the park. As the number of visitors grew, so did the demand for a road across the mountains. This demand led to the building of Going-to-the-Sun Road.

Going-to-the-Sun Road traverses the park in roughly an east-west direction and is about 50 miles long. The road was opened in 1932 after 11 years of construction. Building the road would be a huge undertaking today, but it is truly amazing what they were able to accomplish that many years ago. The road is a true engineering marvel and is listed as a National Landmark.

We started our drive through the park at the western end of Going-to-the-Sun Road. Lake McDonald is a glacial lake located a short distance inside the park. The lake is a little over 10 miles long, about 1½ miles wide, and 472 feet deep. The photo below shows Lake McDonald from the southwestern end. It was very windy the day we stopped for the photo, and the lake is big enough to allow the wind to kick quite a few whitecaps.

Lake McDonald is fed by McDonald Creek; and a short distance past the northeastern end of the lake, McDonald Creek tumbles over McDonald Falls.

A little farther along Going-to-the-Sun Road, we stopped at another area where there was a smaller falls and where we could walk down to the edge of the water.

Margery tested the water. It was COLD!

Much of the near bank of the creek was solid rock, and Paul was interested in how the water had carved numerous potholes.

Our next stop was at Avalanche Creek where there is a four-mile round trip hike to Avalanche Lake and a shorter, .8 mile nature trail loop called Trail of the Cedars. Because Going-to-the-Sun Road is currently undergoing a multi-year rehabilitation, we knew there may be construction delays. Therefore, we didn't want to run out of time later on, so we opted for the shorter Trail of the Cedars hike. The trail passes through a dense cedar forest. At the far end of the loop is Avalanche Creek Falls. The next photo shows us on the bridge overlooking Avalanche Creek Falls.

Shortly after passing Avalanche Creek, Going-to-the-Sun Road starts to climb. The next photo is looking southeast back along McDonald Creek in the lower left toward Lake McDonald. Notice the characteristic U-shape of the glacial valley. The snow-capped mountain is 8,987-foot Heavens Peak.

The Continental Divide runs through Glacier National Park. The Continental Divide is the line where all the water on one side flows to the Pacific Ocean and all the water on the other side ends up in the Atlantic (by way of the Gulf of Mexico). Glacier National Park is the location of a triple divide. The third divide is called the Hudson Bay Divide where the water flows northward to the Hudson Bay. The Going-to-the-Sun Road crosses the Hudson Bay Divide at Logan Pass. The next photo is looking east as we approached Logan Pass. The Hudson Bay Divide is out of the picture at the top of the hill on the left. The mountain in the distance seemed to be floating on clouds.

It is on the western side of Logan Pass where Going-to-the-Sun Road is currently undergoing renovation. The road is down to one lane in several areas, and there is alternating traffic flow. Although we had to stop several times, we never had to wait more than 5 or 10 minutes. Rather than being an inconvenience, it was an opportunity to stop for photos in areas where there were no pull-offs and where there would otherwise not be an opportunity to stop. We got out of the car to take the next photo during one of the construction delays. There is a pile of snow on the left and the Going-to-the-Sun Road along the edge of the hill on the right.

Going-to-the-Sun Road carries a lot of traffic. One thing the park is doing to reduce traffic is to provide free shuttle buses. Since Going-to-the-Sun Road is so winding and narrow (vehicle length is limited to 21 feet going over Logan Pass), the park uses mini-buses.

The park also provides guided tours (for a fee) in restored red jammer tour buses originally built in the 1930s by the White Company. The original buses were used until 1999 when inspections raised questions about safety. The White Company went out of business in 1980, so Ford undertook renovating all 32 of the park's buses in a project that ended up costing $800,000. The buses were completely disassembled, repaired, and rebuilt. The restored and modified red bodies were placed onto new E-450 chassis with economical bi-fuel engines capable of running either on gasoline or clean-burning propane. Brakes were upgraded to four-wheel disc ABS systems, and glass and lights were brought up to today's standards. The next photo shows one of the restored red jammer buses.

There is a very popular visitor center at Logan Pass; but even with the free shuttle buses and red jammer tour buses to reduce the number of private vehicles, the parking lot at the Logan Pass was filled to capacity. So we continued on down the other side of the pass on Going-to-the-Sun Road. We have a lot more to report about the eastern side of Glacier National Park, so look for our next post.

August 11, 2009

Seattle, WA to Polson, MT

We left Bothell and the Seattle area and headed east. We were headed for Glacier National Park, but we made a couple of interim stops along the way.

Our first stop was Suncrest RV Resort in Moses Lake, WA, which was about a three-hour drive from Bothell. Suncrest RV has paved roads and pads with grass between the sites. Some of the sites are pull-throughs and some are back-ins. We got a pull-through so we wouldn't have to unhook the car since we were only staying one night. There was a little noise from I-90, but it was hot and the air conditioner pretty much drowned it out. Suncrest RV has full hookups and free Wi-Fi. The photo below shows our site at Suncrest RV.

From Moses Lake, we had a little less than a three-hour drive to Kahnderosa Campground in Cataldo, MT. Kahnderosa isn't fancy, but the owner was very friendly and it was fine for a one-night stop. The roads are mostly dirt and the sites are grass. Kahnderosa has water and 30-amp electric only. They gave us the end site so we wouldn't have any problems getting satellite reception and so we could pull through and not have to unhook the car, but that put us at the end of the electrical run so we had problems with low voltage. Kahnderosa is conveniently located right off I-90, which means there was traffic noise. The next photo shows our site at Kahnderosa Campground.

From Kahnderosa Campground in Cataldo, we had about a four-hour drive to Polson, MT, which is located at the southern end of Flathead Lake about an hour and a half south of Glacier National Park. In Polson, we stayed at Eagle Nest RV Resort. We were impressed by their sign as we drove into the campground.

Eagle Nest RV has full hookups with 50-amp electric, free Wi-Fi, and cable TV. The roads and patios are paved and the pads are gravel. The sites are nice and wide; but unfortunately, they are all short. Parking for back-in sites is at the front of your site parallel to the road. This makes the roads quite narrow. Parking for pull-through sites is in small parking areas located a short distance away from the sites. The next photo shows our site at Eagle Nest RV. You can see the parking area for the pull-through sites behind our motor home.

Eagle Nest is a nice, quiet campground. After our busy schedule in the Seattle area and after three days of traveling, we scheduled several days in Polson to unwind. Although we didn't have any definite sightseeing plans while staying in Polson, we did find out about the National Bison Range Wildlife Refuge located about half an hour to the south.

The National Bison Range was established in 1908 as a refuge for the American bison. Once numbering in the tens of millions, by the end of the 1800s there were only about 100 bison roaming wild. Larger numbers existed in private herds, but the bison were on the brink of extinction. Bison were eradicated during the Indian Wars to deprive the Indians of a valuable food source. Bison were also killed off because they competed with cattle for food.

The National Bison Range covers about 18,500 acres and has a relatively small herd of bison that ranges in size from 350 to 500 animals. The Bison Range is also a wildlife preserve and is home to elk, black bear, deer, pronghorn, coyote, and bighorn sheep as well as numerous species of birds. A large part of the range is prairie, but there are also forests, streams, and wetlands providing habitat for many different species of animals.

There is a 19-mile, gravel road that loops around the range. The loop road is open in summer, but there is a short, two-way section of the road that is used in winter (weather permitting). There are numbered signs along the road that correspond to descriptions on a map they hand out at the visitor center.

One of the first areas the road passes is Pauline Creek. The creek bed is dry this time of year, but there is enough moisture in the ground from seeps along the way that there are trees and small shrubs along the creek bed. Many of the shrubs are huckleberry bushes. Huckleberries, which are shown in the next photo, are similar to blueberries.

The map said to look for bears feeding on huckleberries in summer. Sure enough, this black bear was on its way into the thicket near the upper end of Pauline Creek.

Shortly after we saw the bear, the road started to climb fairly steeply. Overall, the road gains 2,000 feet in elevation. The next photo is looking back down the valley. The green area to the right of center is where Pauline Creek is located. You can see part of a forested area on the left, and you can see some of the switchbacks in the road.

At the top of the road looking to the northeast, you can see the glacial valley that was once Glacial Lake Missoula. Unfortunately, it was quite hazy the day we were there, but the next photo shows the valley where Lake Missoula was once located.

Lake Missoula was created by ice dams across the Clark Fork River during the Ice Age and had an area of about 3,000 square miles. Periodically, the ice dam would give way creating cataclysmic floods that helped create the Columbia River Gorge that we saw a few weeks ago while we were in Oregon. The lake drained and refilled dozens of times before the glaciers finally retreated.

The range is separated into several areas by fences. Although the bison roam free within an area, they are periodically moved from one area to another to help keep any one area from being overgrazed. As the road wound back down to the valley, we passed the area of the range where the bison were supposed to be. Unfortunately, there were no bison within sight. However, we did see some pronghorn. Pronghorn are commonly called antelope, they are really a separate species. The pronghorn eat mostly broad-leaf plants and do not compete for food with the bison, which eat grasses.

A little farther along, the road runs along Mission Creek. The map said to look for deer and elk in this area. Shortly, we saw two young whitetail deer...

...followed by a bull elk.

We were disappointed we didn't see any bison, but for Margery it brought to life the ballad, Home On the Range. We saw "where the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play." We were grateful to have seen so many other animals at the preserve. On our way back to the motor home, we took a little detour to drive into downtown Polson to see Flathead Lake. Flathead Lake is about 30 miles long and 16 miles wide and is the largest natural, freshwater lake in the western United States. The area of Flathead Lake exceeds the area of Lake Tahoe by about half a square mile. Although the lake is a natural lake formed by moraine dam left by a receding glacier, there is man-made dam that is used to regulate the water level to provide water for irrigation and for hydroelectric power.

Flathead Lake is popular for fishing and boating. The next photo shows the public boat launch area near downtown Polson.

From Polson, we headed north about an hour and a half to stay in Coram, MT to visit Glacier National Park. Look for our next post and we'll tell you all about it.

July 27, 2008

Several months ago when we decided to go to Yellowstone this year, we tried to get reservations in Fishing Village RV Campground which is the only campground right in Yellowstone that has electrical hookups. Unfortunately, we couldn't get in for as many days as we wanted to stay at the time we wanted to be there. Even though we could have dry camped at one of the several other campgrounds in the park, those sites are limited as to the size RV they can accommodate. Therefore, we made reservations at Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park in West Yellowstone, MT.

Staying in West Yellowstone would require us to drive all the way through the park to reach our destination on the west side. In the photo below, we are in the motor home waiting our turn to enter the park, which coincidentally was the two-year anniversary of our full-timing.

The drive through Yellowstone in the motor home was a little slow since there are a few steep climbs on the eastern side, but we took our time and pulled off on some of the numerous pullouts to let other traffic pass. Eventually we made it to the campground by early afternoon. We chose Grizzly because it is only about a half mile outside the west entrance to the park and because of the good reviews it received on rvparkreviews.com, which is a resource we use quite often.

Grizzly RV Park is a very well-maintained RV park with wide, paved roads, gravel pads with concrete edging, and paved patios. There is nice landscaping in the campground and good space between the sites. Grass is watered every night, so don't leave anything out that you don't want to get wet. The photo below shows our site at Grizzly.

West Yellowstone is a nice resort town with a steady stream of RVs coming and going as it is the major route to Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. There are a couple of grocery stores, quite a number of restaurants, many stores specializing in fishing gear, souvenir shops full of all things Yellowstone, gas stations with gas a little cheaper than in the park, and motels. We were surprised to find that West Yellowstone had a better selection of T-shirts than the in-park gift shops. In every shop that had felt cowboy hats, Paul tried them on, but alas, he's more enamored with the IDEA of wearing a hat than actually doing it. It's a shame since he looks soooo good in a hat. :) West Yellowstone also has a museum which we, unfortunately, did not have time to visit AND they had a Dairy Queen.

Yellowstone National Park is the oldest of our national parks having been established in 1872. It covers 3,468 square miles, mostly in Wyoming, but a little of it also extends into Montana and Idaho. The southern part of Yellowstone sits in the caldera, or crater, of a supervolcano. Although the volcano has not erupted for thousands of years, it is considered to be still active. The magma chamber is relatively close to the surface, and this is part of the reason for all the geothermal activity.

The most spectacular way the geothermal activity can manifest itself is through geysers, but conditions must be just right for geysers to occur. There are only about 1000 known, active geysers in the world and over half of them are located in Yellowstone National Park. Three things are necessary to make a geyser: water, heat, and the proper "plumbing" within the rock, and they must be present in the proper proportions. Water and heat are easy to find, but it's the rock that is the key factor. The explanation of the rock "plumbing" is somewhat complicated; but it basically has to do with just the right kind and amount of porosity. Geysers also need somewhat of a restriction near the surface so the steam pressure below can build up and expand to expel water above. For more information on geysers and how they work, check out the link to About Geysers by Alan Glennon.

Undoubtedly, the most famous geyser is Old Faithful. The reason it is so famous is that it is fairly predictable, it erupts relatively frequently at approximate 90 minute intervals, and it is relatively tall at an average height of 130 feet or so.

There are geysers in Yellowstone that are taller than Old Faithful, but they are not as frequent or as predictable. Although it can have minor eruptions of only 15 or 20 feet, Steamboat Geyser, which is the tallest active geyser in the world, has major eruptions of over 300 feet. However, Steamboat Geyser's last eruption was in 2005; and no one can predict when the next one will be.

Beehive Geyser is one of the tallest, regularly active geysers erupting once or twice a day to a height of up to 200 feet. Just as we arrived at the visitor center to check out expected eruption times for Old Faithful, they were announcing that a ranger had seen signs Beehive was going to erupt in the next 15 minutes. Since Beehive is very close to Old Faithful, we were able to hustle over just in time to see it.

Some geysers erupt much more often than Old Faithful. Rusty Geyser, named for the color of the small basin surrounding the geyser, erupts every few minutes; but it is only 1 to 6 feet tall.

Clepsydra Geyser erupts almost continuously to heights of up to 45 feet high. The photo below is a view of the boardwalk approaching Clepsydra Geyser.

This is a closer view of Clepsydra with little Spasm Geyser in the foreground.

Another type of geothermal activity are steam vents or fumeroles. Steam vents occur in conditions similar to those required for geysers, but there isn't quite enough water present to create the periodic eruptions of a geyser. Steam vents don't have the restrictions in the plumbing that geysers have, and they frequently occur on hillsides above the level of more abundant water. The photo below shows Black Growler Steam Vent in the Norris Geyser Basin at Yellowstone. The name is very appropriate.

Roaring Mountain is in the northern part of Yellowstone and is a hillside with numerous steam vents. The number of fumeroles has decreased since the beginning of the 20th century, and Hissing Mountain would probably be a more appropriate name today.

The most common geothermal feature found in Yellowstone is the hot spring. These can range from a small, steaming seep from the ground to pools of various sizes, or to large, steaming lakes. Hot springs occur when there is an abundance of water, but where there are no restrictions in the underground plumbing like there are for geysers. The lack of restriction allows the water to circulate freely and be heated rather than to be periodically forcefully expelled the way it is with a geyser.

One of the most famous and beautiful hot springs is Morning Glory Pool. The photo below shows Margery at the start of our 2-mile, round-trip hike to the pool. She decided to use the walking sticks since this was the longest walk since her knee surgery, and we were doing it after walking almost a mile round trip from the car to Beehive and Old Faithful Geysers.

On the way to Morning Glory Pool, we stopped for a photo of Paul in front of Gem Pool.

Morning Glory Pool got its name from the deep blue color at the center of the pool. The blue color is caused by sunlight being scattered by fine particles suspended in the water. Over the years, thoughtless visitors have tossed coins, rocks, trash, and sticks into the pool clogging the vent and causing the flow of water to decrease. This has caused the water to cool which has allowed some of the heat-loving microorganisms (called thermophiles) that cause the yellow and orange color around the edge of the pool to grow in the center turning the color to green. In the photo below, Margery is sitting on the boardwalk admiring Morning Glory Pool.

On the way to Morning Glory, we spotted the pool in the photo below.

On the walk back to the car, however, we discovered it wasn't just a pool, but it was Artemesia Geyser. Artemesia only erupts once or twice a day. On our way to Morning Glory there were three people reading or napping to bide their time waiting for an eruption. We were blessed to catch the eruption it in progress.

Incidentally, Margery made the 2-mile, round-trip walk to Morning Glory Pool (on top of previously walking almost a mile to Old Faithful and Beehive Geysers) with no problem.

Paul's favorite hot spring was Great Prismatic Spring. The deep blue color of the center of the spring (again caused by sunlight being scattered by fine particles suspended in the water similar to Morning Glory) and the bright orange and red color in the perimeter caused by thermophiles are so intense they are reflected in the steam floating over the pool.

Norris Basin is the hottest and most changeable thermal area in Yellowstone. It is the home of Steamboat Geyser, the world's tallest active geyser. Unfortunately, Steamboat's eruptions are very seldom and quite unpredictable, so it was quiet when we were there. Norris Basin also has numerous hot springs including this one with green and yellow thermophiles in the runoff.

In the photo below, we are standing in front of Porcelain Springs in Norris Basin.

At the northern edge of the park is Mammoth Hot Springs which has some of Yellowstone's most spectacular hot springs. Here, as ground water seeps down through thick layers of sedimentary limestone, it comes in contact with hot gasses containing carbon dioxide from the magma chamber below. The carbon dioxide readily dissolves in the hot water forming a weak acid. The hot, acidic water dissolves some of the limestone and carries it to the surface. When exposed to the air, the carbon dioxide escapes; and the water can no longer contain the dissolved limestone so the limestone forms a solid mineral deposit called travertine.

At Mammoth Hot Springs, some of the mineral deposits form terraces down the hillside such as these at Canary Spring.

Some of the hot springs form mounds such as Orange Spring Mound.

Liberty Cap (named for the peaked caps worn during the French Revolution - this area was originally explored by French trappers) is the mound of an extinct spring that must have had very high pressure and must have been active for quite a long time (several hundred years) to produce such a tall mound.

The photo below shows a closeup of Palette Spring which can be seen behind Liberty Cap in the photo above. Palette Spring has an orange, active section to the left; a white, inactive section to the right; and the cone of an extinct spring in the center.

A mud pot is a type of hot spring except with a little less water. Also, the water needs to be acidic so it can dissolve some of the surrounding volcanic rock into clay which mixes with the water to form the mud. The amount of water determines if the mud is thick or thin and watery. In summer, some mud pots dry up altogether. The photo below is the Fountain Paint Pot. You can see the gas bubbles coming to the surface of the mud, which is about the consistency of latex wall paint.

Near the Fountain Paint Pot is Red Spouter. You can see by the splashes on the left side, this mud is thinner. In late summer, the mud dries; and Red Spouter becomes a hissing fumerole.

The thermal features of Yellowstone aren't located very many other places on earth, and they are exciting. But stay tuned for some other features of Yellowstone that aren't as hot, but are equally thrilling.